Richard J. Goldstone

Richard J. Goldstone is a former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He previously served as judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal, as well as judge of the Transvaal High Court. Justice Goldstone has recently served as a visiting professor of law at Georgetown Law School and at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Justice Goldstone has spent his career working in many areas of human rights, including serving as chairperson of the South African Commission of Inquiry regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, also known as the Goldstone Commission. Among the other positions, he is the honorary president of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association and chairs the advisory boards of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, the Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University, and the International Center for Transitional Justice.

He is the recipient of many awards, including the MacArthur Award for International Justice, the American Bar Association’s International Human Rights Award, and the Richard E. Neustadt Award from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, as well as honorary doctorates of law from universities in South Africa, Europe, North America, and Israel. He is a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honorary bencher of the Inner Temple, London, and an honorary fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge. He is the author of “For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Investigator.”

Justice Goldstone holds a BA and an LLB from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.